There was a lovely moment at the Cricket Writers’ Club lunch recently when Joe
Root received the Young Cricketer Of The Year award.

Asked by the MC, the former Kent captain David Fulton, whether he had received a call about the Test tour party to India that was to be announced the day afterwards, Root replied: “I’ve had the call but I can’t say anything about it.”

It was a shock answer, if delightfully naive. It certainly meant Root was in the party – those touted as possible candidates are not contacted with disappointing news – and it contrasted with the response given by Nick Compton, who was also at the lunch to receive the County Championship Player of the Year award.

“The phone’s on vibrate but nothing’s buzzing in there,” he joked when asked the same question.

In truth it must have been hugely frustrating for each man. Both selected by England for the first time they would have wanted to shout the news from the rooftops.

We all have our selection stories. With rain ruining a County Championship match against Leicestershire at Cardiff in 1998 I was in the gym across the road at the National Sports Centre when the Glamorgan chief executive, Mike Fatkin, rushed in with news that David Graveney, the chairman of selectors, had phoned.

Mark Butcher was injured. I was going to play for England. With no prescient pun obviously intended, my mate Adrian Dale shouted, “Don’t forget your roots!” as I sped off.

The likeable Root seems unlikely to forget his, especially as his fellow Sheffield Collegiate product, Michael Vaughan, gave him his thigh and inner-thigh pads upon retirement, just as Martyn Moxon had given Vaughan Geoff Boycott’s chest guard in a similar hand-down.

A bit like Root and Compton, I was told there was an embargo, though.

So when my local paper, the South Wales Argus, phoned a short time afterwards with a small inquiry about my weekly column, I felt I could not tell them.

They called an hour later rather unhappy about missing out on a scoop for their later evening editions!

Ah, no matter. It is a wonderful time for any cricketer, as Root and Compton will doubtless attest, as they go to India as England’s two uncapped batsmen.

I will admit that their selections were a surprise. One could easily have foreseen a situation where neither went.

Any combination of Kevin Pietersen, Ravi Bopara and James Taylor could have gone instead.

But what is intriguing is the difference between the routes taken by Root and Compton to their selections.

Root is 21 and Compton 29, so that in itself tells a story. Root has come through the system; Compton has had to barge his way back into it through sheer weight of runs.

It reflects well on the England set-up that their system is not a closed shop, with Compton offering hope to all those toiling in the shires.

There is in place what is called the ‘England Development Programme’ whose unashamed mission is “to produce the world’s best cricketers for England by the age of 27”.

Root, having come through the Yorkshire and England academies as well as the England Under-19 team, is the epitome of this process, with its identification of talent now extremely thorough. Gone, thankfully, are the days of the old school tie.

Compton, despite touring Bangladesh with England A in 2006/07, is an outsider hoping to follow other successful late developers such as Andrew Strauss and Jonathan Trott.

Over time he has simply worked out his game. The Lions could not ignore him this summer.

And now, with Pietersen in purdah, Bopara in a mess and Taylor, so I am told, not considered technically strong enough for Test cricket, the senior team could not do so either.

It was not just Compton’s 1,494 runs at 99.60 this season. He made 1,098 at 57.78 last year too. This is no flash in the pan.

24As Compton himself said at the lunch, he is even being referred to as just “Nick Compton”, without the inevitable corollary “grandson of Denis”.

By contrast, Root’s figures this season were not outstanding. Yes, he scored a double century in the County Championship and a hundred for the England Lions, but those aside he has been decent rather than compellingly prolific.

Goodness, he does not even average 40 in first-class cricket, but, then, neither did Vaughan or Marcus Trescothick when first selected, and they did rather well.